Grosser Garten Morning Walk - MOORHEN and Short-toed Treecreepers everywhere!

Decent birding this morning. I finally got to the Grosser Garten city park in Dresden before 9am! Thus before it became filled with weekend nature/fresh air seeking Dresdener families. During a  brisk 2 1/2 hour walk, I tallied 33 species (including 2 introduced ones though, shown in the list below in italics)...not bad at all considering it not only was a city park, but I had some major misses (see the last part for a partial list). Qualitatively, though, it was one of the best bird walks I've had in Germany, and the best part was 2 more lifers!

1) Graylag Goose
2) Mute Swan - 1
3) Mallard - x
4) Wood Duck - 1 drake
5) Mandarin Duck - x
6) Gray Heron - 3, FOY.
7) COMMON MOORHEN - 1, FOY. Brief but great view of adult and it called
8) Rock Pigeon - x
9) Common Wood-Pigeon - x
10) Common Swift - 2, FOY.
11) LESSER SPOTTED WOODPECKER - 1, FOY, LIFER! First heard, then observed for decent period on an old, dying deciduous tree at western edge of Palais lawn.
12) Great Spotted Woodpecker - 2.
13) Eurasian Magpie - few.
14) Carrion Crow - x
15) Hooded Crow - x
16) Great Tit - x
17) Eurasian Blue Tit - x
18) Long-tailed Tit - 2 small flocks of 2-3 pairs each around the park.
19) Eurasian Nuthatch - 6
20) Short-toed Treecreeper - 10+. Singing and literally EVERYWHERE! Some perhaps migrants?
21) Blackcap - 4
22) European Robin - 3
23) Black Redstart - 1 female (or perhaps the DULLEST male I ever saw!) singing from the top of a conifer.
24) Eurasian Blackbird - x
25) Fieldfare - 10+
26) Song Thrush - 2, one was gathering nesting material.
27) European Starling - x.
28) White Wagtail - 1 walking and wagging its way down a dirt path in the shade of trees, rather far from water...unusual behavior based on my experience (?)
29) Common Chaffinch - x
30) European Greenfich - 5+
31) European Goldfinch - 2 (singles in different locations)
32) EUROPEAN SERIN - 1, FOY, LIFER! Single bright adult male; huge head plus tiny bill gave me a "bulldog" impression :)
33) House Sparrow - x

HUGE Misses:
1) Green Woodpecker!!! Usually most common woodpecker sp., already nesting so they quieted down??
2) Eurasian Jay??? (Just overlooked? Saw one the day before on the campus).
3) Warblers (besides Blackcap)
4) Hawfinch - usually see a few here in specific locations.
5) NO RAPTORS!!!! (no Kestrel even!)
and a few others that would have easily made it a 40+-species walk, and probably if I did a Big Day there today I could have gotten close to 50 species...not bad for a city park, really, when you won't see many more species in the surrounding countryside.

Well, let's see what tomorrow brings; heading to new place I found out about on a Saxony ornithological website written only in German (thus why I found out about it only recently). It should be interesting no matter how many species I see, and the weather is cooler but should be sunny and clear. Good spring birding everyone!

Tharandt Forest - Chestnut Trees and Schmetterlinge (Butterflies)!

This past Saturday, I headed away from the Elbe sandstone "mountains" and the Elbe river, and headed southwest instead, on a 15-min train ride to the small town of Tharandt, on the northeastern corner of the large Tharandter Wald (Tharandt Forest), a large tract of mostly deciduous, but mixed, forests on the slopes of part of the eastern Ore Mountain range (Erzgebirge). The deciduous trees were about 80-90% some kind of chestnut species, with a few birches mixed in. Birds were hard to see mid-day but were quite vocal, often very high up (I have never had such a bad case of "warbler-neck" in my life).

Below are pictures I took of the town's church, literally built on a rock (high above the town), and of medieval fortress ruins nearby.

Here is a list of the birds I did manage to find (or hear at least):

Common Buzzard - 2 adult birds soaring high.

Red Kite - 1 soared overhead, but way up there.
Sparrowhawk - 1 swooped swiftly just over the canopy.
White Wagtails, Black Redstarts - several along the streams and in town.
(Winter) Wren - FOY. Heard singing beautiful long warbling song, unfortunately could not spot him.
Firecrest - Sang forever from deep inside a conifer, alas never showing himself after almost 10 minutes of waiting and neck-straining...the little devil.
Treecreeper - Heard one calling.
Robins
Nuthatches
Willow Warblers - Several singing distinct trill song: Descending and accelerating to a monotonous, highly accelerated trill at the end.
Great Spotted Woodpeckers
Chaffinches - Many, but one pair found with female gathering nesting material, while male seemed to stand guard.
Blue Tits

Admittedly, a bit disappointing bird-wise (no lifers and missed the sought-after species: Black Stork), but then again I did not get out that early and the birding was expected to be quite difficult...
Butterflies on the other hand, where great, and I will definitely want to come back for a butterfly count someday. Here is the summary:

European Peacock - 1
Cabbage White - several
Mourning Cloak - 1 (first in europe)
Map - 1 (Lifer!)
Small Tortoiseshell - 2 (Lifer!)
Orangetip - 1 (beautiful male)
Eastern Baton Blue - 2 (Lifers, found on the path to the church)
One other unidentified Lycaenid species fluttering high up near a tree.
Here is the best picture I could get of the Baton Blue (Scolitantides schiffermuelleri):

Good spring birding and butterflying everyone!

Pfaffenstein Table Mountain - Gray-headed Woodpecker, Warblers, and RED KITE!

Last Sunday's gorgeous weather pulled me away from the books and back to the mountains of Saxon Switzerland. After much weighing of choices, I finally decided, since I had a hiking map of the area, to go back to Königstein, but hike about an hour southeast, past the quiet little village of Pfaffendorf, to Pfaffenstein Table Mountain. This cluster of mountains is geologically amazing ( to me at least) because during the Cretaceous period, between 1,444 and 66 million years ago, a stretch of sea covered the land where today you will find gorges, mesas and rock towers in abundance. The region was formed when rivers flowing from the peaks of the Ore mountains deposited sediment and seashells as the waters flowed to the sea. Technically speaking the Elbe Sandstone Mountains are not mountains at all. The landscape was formed by erosion, from water and wind, which created the region's distinctive features; sandstone blocks, u-shaped valleys and vertical walls, which descend in several steps and are broken up into spurs and rock towers.

Now I told myself not to go too far on the "commentary" this time for (a) it might bore some readers, and (b) I don't really have time as a PhD student/slave to have a true blog, so from now on I will try to just review species, especially new ones for the year (FOYs) and LIFERS, as well as other significant natural history notes, since that is what this blog is about in the first place. Though what lacks in diversity and extravagant beauty of avifauna when going birding in Europe (as opposed to, say, birding in Ecuador or New Guinea!) is made up for in the rich cultural history that can simultaneously be enjoyed on any birding trip within Europe. (Come to think of it, then perhaps China is probably one of the greatest places to travel to!)
SO, here it goes...

Birds of interest:


1) Gray-headed Woodpecker (Picus canus) - FOY, LIFER! An adult male, with red patch on forecrown. Very secretive; not a peep out of him, and was very flighty. I have a feeling these birds, though surely less common than both Green and Great Spotted Woodpeckers, is not as rare as it might seem, and these are just quiet and shy species...something to look further into. Any readers have experience with the habits of this specie?

2) Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita) - FOY, LIFER! Finally, this small, canopy-hopper couldn't stop bobbing its tail (not unlike a Palm Warbler back home). I read about the various characters that differentiate this bird from the similar (and equally common, though in slightly different preferred habitats) Willow Warbler. Compact shape (shorter primary projection), dark legs, darker below, not-too-strong of a supercilium, slightly thinner and darker bill....but the tail bobbing made it easy to ID as well.

3) Ravens (Corvus corax) - A nice pair was found perched, and calling from atop a conifer.

4) Willow Tit (Poecile montanus) - FOY. Single bird found at the top of the mountain in the same location as the Ravens.

5) Firecrest (Regulus ignicapilla) - FOY, LIFER! High up in a conifer, discovered by high-pitched song. Only saw below and face, and the latter was enough to tell who it was! There were some deciduous (birch mainly) trees around, so it wasnt pure coniferous and so perhaps not the ideal habitat for Goldcrests as much as for Firecrests(?).

6) Great Cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo) - *FOY for Germany (Zurich in Jan). An adult and a juvenile bird, separated by about 30 seconds or so, flew NW down river (Towards Dresden).

7) Red Kite (Milvus milvus [one of the best Latin names for birds I've seen!]) - FOY, LIFER! Adult cruising over the Elbe river, appearing amazingly 2 minutes before my train back to Dresden arrived! It disappeared almost as soon as it appeared, but with my bins I had an awesome look at it; when I saw that long, strongly forked tail I knew it was special (I think my initial excitement might have startled nearby civilians), and then the dark underwings with light windows at the ends and the deep, rufous body left no doubt in my mind that this was what it was! Whew, what I'd give though to have enjoyed it for even 5 more minutes!

Also, the day before (Saturday), I had just enough time to swing by the Grosser Garten in town and had...

8) Fieldfares (Turdus pilaris) - FOY, LIFER! 6+ individuals; behaviorally they most reminded me of colorfully patterned American Robins, and associated with some European Blackbirds.

9) Blackcaps (Sylvia atricapilla) - FOY. 2 males, looking like crossbreeds of a Catbird and a Wilson's Warbler, were actively gleaning insects. Another male was seen near Königstein on the hillside the day after.

10) Willow Warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus) - FOY, LIFER! 2 were gleaning insects from high up in the canopy of a deciduous tree, and chasing each other as if competing over food or possible courtship?? Similar to Chiffchaff, but slightly less compact with a long primary projection, coupled with a lighter, whitish underside (belly at least) and stronger supercilium and lighter colored legs and bill. Unfortunately did not vocalize, besides the squabble from the fight.

What a near-perfect weekend, that's all for now until the next outing which may or may not be this next coming weekend depending on weather...but hey, get out there and enjoy the birds when you can!

Hiking to Fortification Königstein

This past Saturday, with temperatures reaching into the 70s, I headed with my Semester Ticket to the Main Train Station for the next regional train heading into the nearby Elbe sandstone mountains and Saxon Switzerland National Park. It was named after the Swiss painters Adrian Zingg and Anton Graff, whom it reminded of the Jura mountains when they went walking there in 1766. Besides moderate hiking through a romantic landscape full of flat-topped mountains and bizarre shapped rock walls created from seas in the Cretaceous period, there are quaint medieval villages as well, tucked into the valleys and to the banks of the Elbe river.

On this particular outing, I decided to conquer Königstein, a small town along the Elbe, south of Dresden, under the largest rock fortification in Europe. Of course there are tourist buses that frequently escort visitors swiftly to the fortification from town, but I was there mainly to hike to it, birding and observing nature along the way. However, this trip quickly (and to my satisfaction) turned into a mixed adventure of culture and natural beauty. The now mostly-deserted (it would almost be if not for the tourists) picturesque towns along the Elbe are evidence of this region's once great affluence from mining; the rocks used to build all those Baroque palaces and churches in Dresden and Leipzig, and even Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, came from this Saxon Swiss region.  After finding one of the main paths (the longer, but also more scenic one) leading up to the fortification Königstein, the church bells started ringing as it was noon (hey the train was late as everyone wanted to get out of the city on the most gorgeous day of the year so far). Here is what it sounded and looked like (I think I was humming "the hills are alive..." to myself):

Then, climbing up the mountainside in mostly coniferous forest, where I picked out at least 5 different varieties of pine cones (therefore concluding that there were at least 5 different species around), I took a short video to record the songs of Robins and Chaffinches. The closer (and thus louder) flute-like warbling is the European Robin (Erithacus rubecula), and the fainter, but much more robust multi-toned "machine gun" song is a Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs). Here you go:

 

Other birds encountered were the typical breeders: Great and Blue Tits, Greater Spotted Woodpecker, Green Woodpecker, Eurasian Jays, Starlings, Common Wood Pigeons, Common Blackbirds, Eurasian Goldfinch, Eurasian Siskin and European Nuthatch. Then, as I was hiking along the forest edge of a grass field, about half-way up to the fortification, my life Common Brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni) darted into the forest, right in front of me. This early time of year, and moreover that neon greenish-yellow flash made the ID unmistakeable (reminiscent of the Cloudless Sulphurs (Phoebis sennae) back home which usually show up in southern New Jersey at the end of summer in a reverse-migration from the south). Germans are straight-to-the-point, and call them Zitronenfalter (literally "Lemon butterflies"), which sounds cool, but Brimstone sounds much cooler still! (Brimstone by the way was the archaic/biblical term for sulphur, FYI).

Soon I came across an orange Nymphalid butterfly species which was fluttering quite a ways off, and then disappeared, that will remain unidentified unfortunately. My best guesses would have to be Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui) or Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae). And just before reaching the final leg of the hike up the mountainside, at quite high elevation, 2 female Orange Tips (Anthocharis cardamines), with the orange tips of the forewings missing, but with greenish speckling on the underside of the wings, flitted slowly by. Its flight style is notably different from other white pierids, like Cabbage White (Pieris rapae).

Of note at the top of the fortification (besides breathtaking views) included: a Common Raven (Corvus corax) both flying and "croaking" not far off, my first White Wagtail (Motacilla alba) singing from the roof of an inticing ice cream shop (believe it or not, it was above 70 F!) and while observing some longhorn beetle species, my eyes caught sight of an owl pellet actually lying on the stone wall around the southeastern edge of the fortification:

Its small size (about 1.5 inches long, and 0.5 inch in diameter) leads me to guess that it most likely originated from a Tengmalm's Owl (Aegolius funereus) or perhaps the less common (European) Pygmy Owl (Glaucidium passerinum). I now should try to come here before dawn, or stay until the sun sets, to listen and watcing for owls, especially Pygmy Owls, since they are known to be more of a crepuscular hunter, than a night hunter like Tengmalm's. This is also the best time of year for that since they are most vocal during there prenesting season.

Back in town, before heading back to Dresden, I came across another Common Brimstone and my first European Peacock (Inachis io), an absolutely gorgeous insect, especially for the first time seeing this amazingly (and thankfully) common species:

Birds in this sunny spot near the town included more rambunctious White Wagtails (a flock of 5 actually) chasing each other and my first-of-year (FOY) Black Redstart (Pheonicurus ochruros); a nice adult male, with dark face and the white wing pannel.

Other FOY birds seen in the past 2+ weeks:

1) Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos) - 3 in a field near southwest entrance to Grosser Garten.

2) Hawfinch (Coccothraustes coccothraustes) - small flock 4-5 "tinking" secretively at the tops of trees...it's a bird which seems to not want to draw attention to itself! 

3) Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) - heard only (but still such a great sound!) at the Grosser Garten the day after the trip reviewed above.

4) Common Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus)- actually several seen from around Dresden, including the first one a few weeks back seen from my office window at work.

At least I finally broke 100 species of birds for the yearlist (combining Europe and New Jersey lists), but still have a long way to go to my goal of 300-400, which should be easy if I get some good birding in when I'll be home in Cape May the end of August and the first half of September...ANYWAY:

Enjoy the new life blooming and singing all around, and happy spring birding to all!